Liquid and gas contact apparatus



HJ. ZIMMERMANN." LIQUID AND GAS CONTACTAPPARATUS.

'APPLICATION FILED IULY,5, 1918.

'1 ,350,202, l Patented Aug. 17, 1920.

I 'I \\\\\////I I HANS mzmuEMANN, or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ASSIGNon., ToTHE G. A. BUHL COMPANY, or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,

BY MESNE ASSIGNMENTS, A CORPORATION Or- ILLI- mourn GAS CONTACTArPAaATUs Specification of Letters Patent. Patented Aug. 17', 1920.

Application mea July s, 191s.l serial No. 243,326.

To .all whom/.it may concern:

Be it known that I, I-IANs JOSEPH ZIMMER- MANN, subject of the Emperorof Germany, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and StateofIllinois, have invented .a new and useful Improvement inLiquid and GasContact Apparatus, of whichthe following is a s cification.

This invention relates to improvements in apparatus for securing contactbetween a liquid and a' gas, more particularly between a sprayed liquidand a moving stream of gas (or vapor).

As illustrated examples of the particular arts in which my invention isuseful, the following may be given: 1

1. The humidifying of air.

2. The absorption of water vaporby sul-p,

furic acid.

3. The evaporation of the aqueous content of an atomized solution by dryair or other gas, or superheated steam. ,u

4. The concentration orl fractionation of va sprayed liquid byevaporation from the surfaces of the droplets."

l In all of the foregoing particular 'arts theV efiiciency of theliquidand gas contact apparatus maybe said to vdepend upon the vThespray nozzle .by

' the spray nozzle there is an energy required for producing"theliquidspray and the gas ow, and the degree of saturation reached at'theend of the process.

.By my invention, intermixing ofv the sprayed liquid and of the flowinggas current is achieved in the simplest manner and with a minimumexpenditure of energy.

An apparatus in accordance with m in'- vention is illustrateddiagrammatical y in the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure 1 is alongitudinal central section through the lower portion of a cylindricaldrum inwhich the mixing takes place, and Fig. 2 is a transverse sectionon the line 2 of Fig.' 1. f

Referring more particularly to the drawings, the numeral 10 designatesthe cylindrical wall of the casing or drum, which constitutes the mixingor eva orating chamber.

whic I, the liquid-is introduced is designated 11and vlies on'- the axisof the drum. Immediately'surrounding imperforate disk l2 of considerablediameter,

axially of the drum. 'The gas `is'admitted to the drum 10 throughtheannular spacebeliquid spray,

. is of advantage 'readily pass between the individual droplets,

v which forms the head for' a cylindrical core 13 arranged co` tween thecore 13 and thelwall of the drum, and in accordance with the presentinvention the incoming gas current is deflected by a helicoidal vane 15of the full width of the annular opening. The air current, thereforeenters the drum 10 tangentially thereof, and

in its progress along the length o'f the drum will pursue a helicalcourse. y

' By -reason of the disk 12 and core 13 the which will normally be ofconical form, is protected from the gas current until it has expanded toa diameter approximating thev diameter of the disk 12. This for thereason that the density of the spray decreases in proportion to thesquare of the distance from the nozzle.

.T he as current therefore meets the spray only after the latter has.been so far thinned out or developed that the gas current may andwithoutinterferihg with the course of the latter, in such a way as tocause them to `collide and coalesce into drops of .greater size, thanwould be the case were the gas current permitted to traverse the courseof the spray before the latter had become thinned out. This desirableresult, achieved Aby the use of the .spray shield, made up of the core13 and disk 12,- is not dependent upon the use of a helical gas current,but is of advantage likewise with the ordinary form of gas and liquidmixing apparatus in which the liquid is sprayed' directly `along theaxis of flow of the gas.

The helical gas current producedby the vane'. 15 is of particularadvantage, however,

in that it brings into play the action of centrifugal force for causingthe liquid droplets to traverse thel whole of the gas-body. Thus it willbe seen, by reference to Fig. 1, that the atomized orsprayed liquidprotectY ed by the disk 12 until -it has fully developed, isseized uponby the inner portion of a revolving helical gas current passing upwardlywithin the drum 10. In this upward helical motion of the gas currenteach i liquid droplet will be acted upon by centrifugal force, and willthus be caused to move radially outward through the air as it movesupwardly along the length of the drum. These conditions make for theutmost efficiency of intermixture between the liquid and the gas. Whileit is ordinarily necessary to use a considerable excess of air for thecomplete evaporationA of water, for

example, I find that by the use of the con' struction illustrated inFig. 1 it is possible to completely evaporate a water spray vand securesubstantially complete saturation of the air current, and this withoutresorting to high atomizing pressures, but merely by the use of areasonable pressure with any efficient form of atomizing nozzle.

For the purpose of bringin out more clearly the essential elements 0%the invention, `I have shown and described the disk 12 as being entirelyimperforate, so that no gas at all may pass therethrough. It will beunderstood, however, that the benefits of the invention may besubstantially attained even though the shield or disk 12 be permeable`to gas to a reasonable extent. In some cases there may be a slightadvantage in such permeability of the disk 12, as, for example, when itis found that the movement of the gas current is of such velocity as totend to create undesirable gas-flow conditions in the space surroundingthe nozzle. l

While I have in the foregoing described in considerable detail oneaparatus lo rating according to my invention, it wil be understood thatthis is illustrative only and lfor the purpose of making the inventionmore clear, and that the invention isnot limited to the'details setforth, except insofar as they may be included within the terms of theaccompanying claims, in which it is v my intention to claim all noveltyinherent in my invention as broadly as is permissible, inl view of theprior art.

What I claim is:

1. The method of securing a homogeneous mixture between an atomizedliquid and a gas current, which consists in spraying the liquid in asubstantially axial line into a helically-moving gas current, andshielding the central portion of the spray from the direct action of thesaid current, in order that the spray may be permitted to become reducedin density before it becomes aiiected by the moving current of gas.

2. The combination with a'gas conduit, of a spray nozzle mountedsubstantially axially with respect to the conduit, a shield ofsubstantial dlameter behind and concentric with the nozzle and meansforcausing the gas Within the conduit to assume a helical motion at thezone of the spray.

3. In combination with a gas tconduit, a spray nozzle mounted to deliverin a line substantially axially of the conduit, a shieldl ofsubstantial'vl diameter mounted concentrically with and behind the spraynozzle, and an annular, helicoidal vane lying between the conduit walland the said shield p for directing the gas vcurrent in a helicoidalline at the zone of the spray.

HANS J. ZIMMERMANN.

